Fifty Iowa State University graduate students showcased their research Dec. 3 at the 5th Annual Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering (CCEE) Graduate Student Research Showcase and Poster Competition. About 100 fellow students, faculty, staff, family, friends and alumni attended the event, which was held on the entire second floor of Town Engineering Building.
Since 2011 the CCEE Graduate Student Council has coordinated the showcase. Georges Bou-Saab, a doctoral student in transportation engineering, directed this year’s event. “This is a great chance for students to enhance their presentation skills in a conference-like setting,” Bou-Saab said. “Plus, a diverse host of judges creates professional networking opportunities for students.”
Participation was substantially higher this year than in all past years – the highest student participation before 2015 was 31, which took place in 2012.
Prizes were given by categories: construction/environmental/transportation engineering, structural engineering and geotechnical/geomaterials engineering. First-place participants were awarded $150, followed by $100 second-place prizes and $50 third-place prizes. In addition, attendees voted for their favorite posters to recognize one People’s Choice Award, which came with $100.
Prizes by category
- Construction/Environmental/Transportation Engineering
- Winner: Amrita Goswamy, doctoral student specializing in transportation engineering, “An Empirical Bayes Before and After Safety Evaluation of Road Segments Provided with Safety Edge in Iowa” (under the direction of Professor Shauna Hallmark)
- Second Place: Emily Craigie, master’s student specializing in construction engineering and management, “Cost and Scope Breakdown Structure for Functional Level Estimating of Consultant Fees” (under the direction of Professor Doug Gransberg and Associate Professor H. David Jeong)
- Third Place: Brendon Gardner, master’s student specializing in construction engineering and management, “Effective Conceptual Cost Estimating Method for Highway Projects” (under the direction of Professor Doug Gransberg and Associate Professor H. David Jeong)
- Structural Engineering
- Winner: Sijia Lu, master’s student, “Performance-based Design of Passive Cladding System Connected to Rubber Bumper and Subjected to an Explosive Blast” (under the direction of Assistant Professor Simon Laflamme)
- Second Place: Satyam Mandloi, master’s student, “Network Theory Approach to Enhance Resilience of Bridges in Seismic-prone Regions” (under the direction of Assistant Professor Alice Alipour)
- Third Place: Shahin Hajilar, doctoral student , “Nano-scale Investigation of Failure Mechanisms in Aluminum-rich Species of Hydrated Cement Paste Subjected to Extreme Deformations” (under the direction of Assistant Professor Behrouz Shafei)
- Geotechnical/Geomaterial Engineering
- Winner: Marie Grace Mercado, master’s student, “Validation of Ndesign in Iowa” (under the direction of Assistant Professor Ashley Buss and Chris Williams, the Gerald and Audrey Olson Professor in Civil Engineering)
- Second Place: Ali Arabzadeh, doctoral student, “Engineered Superhydrophobic Asphalt Concrete: A 2015 Update” (under the direction of Professor Halil Ceylan and Research Associate Professor Kasthurirangan Gopalakrishnan)
- Third Place: Cheng Li, doctoral student, “Evaluation of MASW Test for Measuring Multi-layered Elastic Modulus of Chemically Stabilized Unpaved Roads” (under the direction of Assistant Professor Jeramy Ashlock and Richard L. Handy Professor David White)
- People’s Choice Award – Sharif Gushgari, master’s student specializing in geomaterial engineering, “Otta Seal: A Low-cost Alternative to Traditional Bituminous Surface Treatments for Unpaved Roads” (under the direction of Professor Halil Ceylan)
View a photo album of the event.
Eighteen judges from academia, government and industry organizations scored posters. Judges were Ashley Buss (BSCE’08, MSCE’10, PhDCE’14), CCEE assistant professor; An Chen, CCEE assistant professor; In Ho Cho, CCEE assistant professor; Douglas Clark (BSConE’89), structures division manager at Peterson Contractors, Inc. (Reinbeck, Iowa); Kent Claus (BSCE’73), president and principal of KC Engineering (Sioux City, Iowa); Eric Hanson (BSCE’96), vice president and principal of KC Engineering (Sioux City, Iowa); Kaoru Ikuma, CCEE assistant professor; Todd Knox (MSCE’05), traffic engineer at Snyder & Associates (Ankeny, Iowa); Ping Lu (PhDCE’08), bridge rating engineer at the Iowa Department of Transportation (Ames, Iowa); James Nelson (BSCE’97, MSCE’05), transportation engineer at the Iowa Department of Transportation (Ames, Iowa); Michael Pawlovich (BSCE’94, MSCE’96, PhDCE’03), crash analysis engineer at the Iowa Department of Transportation (Ames, Iowa); Joseph Podolsky (PhDCE’14), CCEE postdoctoral research associate; Chris Poole (BSCE’99), safety programs engineer at the Iowa Department of Transportation (Ames, Iowa); Melissa Serio, earthwork field engineer at the Iowa Department of Transportation (Ames, Iowa); Anuj Sharma, CCEE associate professor; Omar Smadi (MSCE’93, PhDCE’00), CCEE associate professor; Theresa Stromberg-Murphy (BSCE’99), project engineer at Terracon Consultants (Ames, Iowa); and Ian Willard, environmental engineer at the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (Des Moines, Iowa).